Myosotis laxa Lehm.
water forget-me-not
Annual or biennial herb. Stems decumbent or erect, branched from base, hairy, sometimes sparsely so. Lower lvs to c. 10 × 1.8 cm, oblong to oblong-lanceolate, sessile, clothed in appressed hairs, especially above, sometimes almost glabrous below; apex obtuse; upper lvs smaller. Cymes usually with bracts at base, otherwise ebracteate, elongating greatly after flowering. Pedicels becoming 1-3× length of calyx at fruiting. Calyx 1.5-3 mm long at anthesis, clothed in straight appressed hairs; teeth c. 1/2 length of tube at anthesis, to c. 4 mm long at fruiting, triangular-ovate, subacute to acute. Corolla limb 2-5 mm diam., ± flat; lobes blue (pink in bud), rounded. Style ± = or < calyx tube. Nutlets 1.2-1.5 × 1-1.2 mm, ovoid, dark brown or olive brown, glossy; rim faint.
N.; S.: widespread and very common throughout.
Temperate Eurasia, E. to Himalaya 1892
Wet habitats, most commonly in slowly moving water.
FL Sep-May.
The sp. is illustrated in Fig. 42. N.Z. plants of M. laxa correspond to subsp. caespitosa (Schultz) Nordh., sometimes accorded specific rank as M. caespitosa Schultz. The sp. was first recorded as M. subvernicosa by Colenso who described it as indigenous.
